NINE POINTS TO NAVIGATE
Created and performed by Brian Webb and Sheri Somerville. May 15-18. Second Playing Space (Timms Centre for the Arts, University of Alberta). Tickets available through TIX on the Square (420-1757/tixonthesquare.ca).

Could Sheri Somerville be Edmonton’s most protean performer? If the idea seems unlikely, maybe it’s because she seems so natural and at home, no matter what setting she appears in. 

Perhaps she’s best known as a cabaret/jazz singer, with two CDs (Crazy Love and In My Arms) to her credit. But she’s also part of Stewart Lemoine’s stock company, playing a haughty singer in Eros and the Itchy Ant and an obstreperous secretary in Skirts on Fire. She’s also a core member of the cast of Die-Nasty!, more than able to hold her own opposite master improvisers like Jeff Haslam and Dana Andersen. She’s sung Kurt Weill for Edmonton Opera and Fiddler on the Roof for Citadel Theatre. 

And now she’s about to make her debut as a modern dancer in Nine Points to Navigate, a show she developed with local choreographer Brian Webb about their relationships with their fathers. Can a stint as a trapeze artist with Firefly Theatre be far behind?

“When Brian told me he wanted me to dance in the show, I told him, ‘You must be ruthless with me,’” she says. “‘Modern dance is a medium that is not my usual thing. So I have to insist this has to be genuine, it has to be authentic. We can’t bullshit the public, because they are not easily fooled. We can’t just be noodling.’ Do you know what I mean?”

Somerville will also be singing in the show, but the song choices may surprise audiences who thought her repertoire was limited pretty much to music older than she is: Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin. “Brian’s original idea was that I do a work by Schönberg,” Somerville says. “And I listened to it and thought, ‘Hmmm... Modern dance and Schönberg? I don’t know. Why don’t we just also set everyone in the audience on fire?’”

Instead, the pair went in the opposite direction, bringing in a rock band led by Howard Fix and Haley Simons and choosing music by the likes of Trent Reznor and Iggy Pop. SEE asked Somerville to share her thoughts on some of the songs in the show and how they form a sort of informal musical autobiography.

“The Ballad of the Sad Young Men”

“This is sort of the anthem of the show: it’s an old jazz song that Rickie Lee Jones recorded a few years ago; it’s on my second album as well. This is, I think, one of the most powerful songs. I find it painful, actually. Naked. It reminds me so much of my father, who had died by the time I was 12 and was one of those soldiers who let the war go when it was over—but he only let it go verbally. He was very damaged by the war, and I witnessed that. He was dying, he was in a lot of pain, this big, beautiful, sensitive man. So I have a lot of sadness around men from that decade, and when I first heard that song, it completely blew me away. I always thought of my father when I recorded it, and when Brian heard it, he went, ‘Oh, my goodness, this is what the whole show is about!’ We didn’t want to make it too morose or melancholy, but at the same time you can’t reconstruct your memories to be something they’re not.”

“Real Wild Child”

“Brian’s parents were very orderly and dressed nicely and had nice cocktail parties and so on, whereas he was this bad boy when he was a teen and did a lot of dope smoking and skipping school. And he was a big Iggy Pop fan. He told me this great story about ditching school and getting stoned and his dad coming home unexpectedly. So I was looking for an Iggy Pop song to tag onto the end of his monologue, and I was going through CDs and found this one [off Blah Blah Blah] and thought, ‘Perfect.’ Singing Iggy Pop definitely calls on different muscles from what I’m used to—it requires a real vocal abandon. Legato lines, beautiful tones? Forget it: it’s loud, it’s oversinging. I can’t do it all the time because I’ll shred my voice, but it’s super-fun!”

“Paint It Black”

“This Rolling Stones song was the last one we added. We needed something about loss that wasn’t sad. It’s a rant, that song, right? ‘I can’t believe this is happening, and I reject it, and I’m pissed off, and nobody gets to be happy either!’ It really seemed to fit.” 

“That Lonesome Road”

“We needed a song that’s a little motivational, and this James Taylor song seemed to fit. I thought it was important, especially in my case, as I went through these memories, a lot of which are fairly sad, not to seem all ‘boo-hoo.’ We both got something from these men. I may not have gotten the traditional things from my father—a scholarship or a ride to school or advice on how to be a good businesswoman—but I got other things. And this song is about wisdom, and how it can take a little time to get through to you. I certainly don’t feel like I got ripped off.”